Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend

BOOK THE THIRD: A LONG LANE Chapter 11: In the Dark (continued)

They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turned up-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone waiting on the pace and lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So slow were the schoolmaster's thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes when they were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose or rather when, like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista at the end of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie on which his eyes were fixed-- that at least a good half-mile was traversed before he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask:

'Where is your Lock?'

'Twenty mile and odd--call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, if you like--up stream,' was the sullen reply.

'How is it called?'

'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock.'

'Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then?'

'Why, then, I'd take it,' said Mr Riderhood.

The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced two half-crowns, and placed them in Mr Riderhood's palm: who stopped at a convenient doorstep to ring them both, before acknowledging their receipt.

'There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor,' said Riderhood, faring on again, 'as looks well and goes fur. You're a ready money man. Now;' when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himself which was furthest from his new friend; 'what's this for?'

'For you.'

'Why, o' course I know THAT,' said Riderhood, as arguing something that was self-evident. 'O' course I know very well as no man in his right senses would suppose as anythink would make me give it up agin when I'd once got it. But what do you want for it?'